Switching Schools Linked with Mental Health Problems in Kids

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Kids who frequently change schools are more likely to hear
voices, have delusions and experience other symptoms linked with
psychosis in adolescence, new research suggests.

In the study, children who switched schools more than three times
were 60 percent more likely to have such symptoms at age 12,
compared with kids who made fewer school moves up to this age.

The study showed an association, and doesn't prove a
cause-and-effect relationship between frequent school shifts and
mental health problems. Still, it's possible that constantly
being the new kid makes children feel vulnerable and socially
defeated, excluded or marginalized, said study co-author Dr.
Swaran Singh, a mental health researcher at the Warwick Medical
School in England. That, in turn, could make
mental illness a greater risk for these kids. [ 10
Facts About the Teen Brain ]

Outsider status

People who feel marginalized — whether because they live in an
immigrant community, face an unstable family life or suffer
economic hardship — tend to have increased rates of psychosis.
Studies have also found that children who move from rural to
urban settings have a higher risk of hallucinations, delusions
and other fleeting psychotic thoughts, Singh told Live Science.

While reading a study conducted in Denmark, Singh came across an
offhand comment that suggested school moves might be part of the
problem.

The researchers tested this idea using a huge dataset, known as
the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. That study
enrolled more than 14,000 pregnant women and their children from
Avon, England, starting in 1991, and followed them throughout the
childrens' lives.

At age 12, about 6,500 of the children from this cohort were
asked a series of questions about psychosis-like symptoms.
Overall, about 5.6 percent of children in the study reported
having fleeting hallucinations or delusions, and another 8.1
percent had suspected symptoms. (Though that may sound like a
high percentage, in many children such symptoms disappear and
will never develop into psychotic disorders such as
schizophrenia, Singh said.)

Like children in the United States, those in England go through a
typical series of
school transitions, from nursery school to reception school
(similar to kindergarten) to primary school.

But children in the study who went through more than three school
moves were more likely than their peers to have symptoms such as
hearing voices or believing their minds were controlled by
others.

Hearing voices

The results held even when the researchers accounted for other
known risk factors of psychosis, such as family instability,
being bullied or bullying, maternal mental health problems and
low socioeconomic status.

It's possible that the feeling of being an outsider is so
stressful that it
primes the brain for future mental illness, Singh said.
However, it could also be that some underlying factor,
unaccounted for by the researchers, affected both the tendency to
move and children's psychosis symptoms, Singh said.

That doesn't mean parents should never move their children from
one school to another, Singh said. But perhaps school staff and
mental health clinicians should keep a closer eye on the
vulnerable new kids in school, Singh said.

The findings were published online Feb. 14 in the Journal of the
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.